Super Bowl UK Style

Well, it's mid afternoon and I am just now slowly starting to be productive and recover from the Super Bowl. You'd think it's because like Peyton, I drank too much Budweiser last night. No, my slow recovery is due to the fact that the Super Bowl didn't even start here until 11:30pm. With the help of lots of soda, I managed to watch pretty much the whole game (only drifted off a bit in the 4th quarter!) and got home a little after 4am. For somebody who doesn't even follow football, I'd say that's a pretty good effort.

I mean we all know I watch for the commercials and the snacks. I went to my classmates flat to watch. There were 3 of us and we probably had enough food for about 10 people. (I may be still in a food coma.)

I made guacamole for the first time ever, rice krispie treats, peanut butter swirl brownies, and Crack Dip. The dip was probably the biggest hit, its a layer dip (recipe after the jump) with lots of cheese and as my mom says "It's called crack for a reason." I don't think my classmates had ever had a layer dip before so I was pleased to pass along an American staple.

Making food here is always an adventure. Between searching for ingredients and converting recipes to metric/celsius, there's a lot of extra effort involved. The UK is not big on Mexican food and I went to 4 different stores before I found a can of refried beans. Cilantro is called coriander. Cream cheese is called "soft cheese." Marshmallows are hard to find, they come in small bags, and most of them are white and pink (and I think slightly strawberry flavored?) 

I halved the brownie recipe. I couldn't find semi-sweet chocolate chips and ended up buying out the store of their tiny bags of milk-chocolate chips. No Nestle Tollhouse here! 

In my new neighborhood I'm not close to a big grocery store so I'm just going to smaller express markets. This is part of the reason the selections aren't the best. Luckily between me and my classmate we tracked down everything we needed and it was all delicious. 

We even streamed the game through CBS so we could watch the American feed and see the commercials. Some of the American references flew by my classmates (I was the only one who laughed at the Kung-Fu Panda old Budweiser spoof) but all in all it was a pretty enjoyable evening. And this morning I had left over Rice Krispie Treats for breakfast because hey, it's a cereal! 

Crack Dip Recipe 

(courtesy of Peggy Howard)

Layer: 

8oz Cream Cheese Softened

Large can refried beans

Salsa

8oz Mexican Shredded Cheese

Bake at 300 for 20 min or until cheese is melted. Serve with scoop fritos.